Judge orders sex harassment plaintiffs to produce Facebook passwords

Women suing an employer for sexual harassment will have to provide a court official with their social media and e-mail passwords. The novel procedure was announced by a Colorado federal magistrate judge earlier this month. Wendy Cabrera is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Honeybaked Ham Company. She and about 20 other women charge that company manager James Jackman "frequently" groped women under his supervision and made sexual requests of them. The woman say the corporate office failed to take action to stop his behavior after it was reported.

Honeybaked Ham argues it needs copies of certain Facebook postings, e-mails, text messages, and other private communications of the plaintiffs in order to defend itself. For example, the company says Cabrera discussed "her financial expectations in this lawsuit" on her Facebook page, which the company says could be useful to establish the plaintiff's motive. The firm also said she posted a picture of Cabrera wearing "a shirt with the word 'CUNT' in large letters written across the front." The defense argues this picture is relevant to the case because Cabrera has charged the word was "used pejoratively against her," and caused her offense.

That's not even all of it. Honeybaked Ham says it will need "other writings addressing her positive outlook on how her life was post-termination, her self-described sexual aggressiveness, statements about actions she engaged in as a supervisor with Defendant, sexually amorous communications with other class members, her post-termination employment and income opportunities and financial condition." And it wants similar information from the other women participating as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

In a November 7 order recently spotted by Venkat Balasubramani, Magistrate Judge Michael E. Hegarty acknowledged much of the information sought by Honeybaked Ham is potentially relevant to the lawsuit. He noted "the whole area of social media presents thorny and novel issues with which courts are only now coming to grips." However, he said "the fact that [information] exists in cyberspace on an electronic device is a logistical and, perhaps, financial problem, but not a circumstance that removes the information from accessibility by a party opponent in litigation."

So Judge Hegarty announced he will appoint a "special master" to oversee the process of producing this evidence. He then ordered all the women who signed onto the lawsuit to give the special master access to their cell phones, "necessary information to access any social media websites used," and "necessary information to access any e-mail account or Web blog or similar/related electronically accessed Internet or remote location used for communication with others or posting communications or pictures" since 2009.

Once the information has been produced, the judge will decide which information is relevant to the lawsuit, give the plaintiffs a chance to object to the disclosures, and then turn over appropriate information to the defendants. The costs of this process will be split between the plaintiffs and defendant.

Balasubramani, an attorney who contributes to Eric Goldman's Technology and Marketing Law Blog, is not a fan of this arrangement. "Requiring disclosure of passwords should be completely off the list" of techniques courts use during the discovery process, he argued. "Apart from the fact that this results in disclosure of or access to the entire contents of the account (including information that is not relevant or information that is covered by the Stored Communications Act) it may result in unwitting changes to the account." Instead, Balasubramani recommends that parties be compelled to export data from sites like Facebook and provide the exported data to the court.

75 Reader Comments

That's tough. I wouldn't want to be handing out any passwords to a stranger, even if they are (and in some cases especially if they are) "law enforcement" or "government".

I would hope this judge reconsiders how best to get the information - noting that the women involved could presumably go and delete anything they want and it wouldn't show up for the "special master" without them having a pretty good clue of how to get around the social sites involved. This of course would be easily solved by asking the site owners (Facebook etc.) for the information.

A very good article about Tugend. Maybe Google Translator will do the job, but I wished someone would translate this...

I read the thing.. partially, as its quite long (translates as 'The curse of Virtue (and their knights) ) but I don't think it really applies as it's mainly about how in an electronic era one is not allowed to make any 'moral' mistakes because our lives are being recorded and even small mistakes become public and chase you for life.

For something as delicate as a sexual harassment case this order is not an absurd request. A judge needs information and context to base his decision upon and should (and will) regard the information received as absolutely confidential. Like your physician needs to know about your life to make a correct diagnosis, a judge needs information to give a proper verdict.

Many issues here, first providing your password such that one may collect personal information as evidence is very much akin to testifying against yourself. "Plead-the-Fifth"

Then there's the fact that people have traditionally had a line between their professional and personal lives, social media accounts 99% of the time fall under "personal life" and are not representative of how one wishes to act or be treated in their professional lives. I won't get into any specific details, but I have many friends who frequent their accounts on "fetlife.com" as a social-media site, I fully believe anyone who frequents this site, is highly unlikely to wish this aspect of their personal life to be reflected in their professional life.

The issue of access to personal data, and to changes to the account exist, it is a much more legally feasible situation that Facebook would be subpoenaed to provide a data-export of any of the related accounts.To this end, several users above suggest Facebook does not support this, I suggest you do a quick web search, I discovered several months ago when Facebook made your accounts and data truly deletable that they also provided a means by which to export ALL RELATED ACCOUNT DATA, as it will be deleted from Facebook's servers and never accessible again. So yes, the functionality does exist, and is user accessible even.

The Data is then automatically archived and e-mailed to an e-mail account of your choosing. The obvious way that this would be used then is either via subpoena or with permission from the Facebook users that the account would be exported to an e-mail address specific for use by THIS COURT CASE ONLY, and then only accessible by appointed court officials. Thereby removing the risk of changing data (intentionally or unintentionally) on the user's profile, as well as providing for the chain-of-evidence to be unbroken between Facebook and the court room.

Likewise it should be requested in this case that if Facebook is subpoenaed to provide the data that the archives are digitally signed, include a CRC for each file batch, and be CC'd to the women's lawyer or her personal e-mail account as well to ensure that the data is verifiable by both parties.

HOWEVER, I digress, that all such mitigation and recommendations are moot based on the fact one has the right to expect privacy in their personal life and the right to feel safe and secure in their working environment.As such it does not matter what is said, photographed, or shared, nor to whom. An advance by an employer or manager to an employee is wrong, every time, no matter who initiated it. The only reasonable response by a manager to a flirtatious employee, is to remind them that there are standards in the workplace by which you must both adhere, and no fraternization will be tolerated.

Thing is I don't think that the information they gather is going to be as relevant as they'll claim it is.

What someone says on Facebook is often very different to their true feelings.

In general I agree with you. Unless they have evidence of her actually discussing filing a fake lawsuit, I'm not sure it's all that relevant. Even if there is a photo of her wearing the "CUNT" t-shirt that doesn't mean the average person wouldn't be greatly offended to be called that by some jerk at work.

The judge is correct that defense counsel has a need to see at least a few of these things in discovery, although I disagree with the order to hand over your password; what is visible to the plaintiff was never necessarily visible to the defendant.

But there's definitely a bit of fishing in the defense's request; unfettered access to the entirety of the Facebook account is hardly necessary for them to collect the information they've highlighted.

Why not subpoena Facebook and order them to disclose the relevant info? Requiring the plaintiffs to divulge their passwords to the court doesn't seem like a very good practice.

Because Facebook is a non-party to the case which should not have to shoulder any burden related to its disposition. Of course, if they provided a simple data-export mechanism like Google does for most services, and like they are probably gearing up to do in the EU, that would make the process much easier.

It is pretty common for emails to be used in court cases but I have never heard of a judge ordering someone to give up their email password in order to facilitate it. Makes no sense.

Facebook DOES already offer users the ability to download their entire Facebook data, but even that doesn't make sense.

Is there a court order preventing the woman from removing old posts?

If this was a criminal case then the Government would get warrants to have Facebook produce the material in question and recover any deleted material.

The data Honey Baked Ham is asking for seems to be quite invasive and broadly over aggressive. It also seems to me if the plaintiffs have to provide such information, why shouldn't the defendant have to provide similar information? Honey Baked Ham seems to be using the discovery process to punish the plaintiffs for daring to bring suit against them. Regardless of other factors, Honey Baked Ham seems willing to paint itself as a company willing to continue abuse of people it is accused of sexually harassing as employees. This is the sort of thing I remember when I'm out shopping.

The defendant does have to provide similar information. They have to provide information related to the case. The Facebook and other accounts obviously contain a lot of information not related to the case, but that information isn't going to be turned over to Honey Baked Ham. The Special Master does dig through their personal lives to dig up relevant information, which is unpleasant at best, but Honey Baked Ham does have a right to defend themselves. These kinds of cases are ugly and exaggeration by plaintiffs in such cases does happen. They provided specific examples of some relevant things they believe to exist in the account that are relevant to the case, so it's not just a fishing expedition.

Honey Baked Ham is being sued because one of their employees is accused of mistreating other employees. They are accused of not doing enough to stop it from happening, specifically after it was reported. With 20 accusers it seems highly likely the guy is guilty of sexual harassment. It also seems highly likely company management should have been aware there was a problem. However the specific requests in this case seem to relate more towards the level of harm that was done and damages.

But with 20 accusers I think that you are right that this is something to think about while shopping. I think Honey Baked Ham just got pulled from the menu this holiday at my house.

It means if *any of my friends* are *accused* of a sexual harassment, everything I share with friends will be seen by a bunch of people I don't know, and I won't even be notified that it's happening.

You must be reading differently from what I've read...

What I understood is that the defendant said there were communication that showed that this sue a fabrication in order to get money.Which means it has to be investigated.

When a judge get a warrant for officials to investigate your house it's OK but when he does the same giving access to only one person! This is very important, one person! To read your facebook and your email accounts suddenly OMG what about my privacy?

I have no problems with this because it's an order from a judge (has it should, meaning the access to private information is only possible through a court order again as it should) and the access is only allowed to one person that will investigate the defendant claims, from what I understood.

If this is so the defendants will not have access to the accounts, no one aside from one person will know the passwords nor the content of the accounts.

If this is so the defendants will not have access to the accounts, no one aside from one person will know the passwords nor the content of the accounts.

If I'm wrong please tell me so.

It doesn't seem to me that anyone here is objecting to the court having access to the *contents* of the facebook account, but rather to the compulsory disclosure of the password.

There are, I think, a lot of reasons why people draw this distinction, which are mostly emotional, but there are still several valid concerns.

A) A password, shared, is devalued. I know that, from my perspective, any password I'm compelled to share with anyone is no longer secure. If I'm using that password for anything else, I now have to go and change all of those as well.

B) Logging in with the password does not give access to any change log or revision history, leaving anything deleted still hidden, vice going to Facebook itself for the records which would include that information.

C) Giving up the password gives the inspector write access to the account as well. While I think it's unlikely that the inspector would do anything to corrupt/falsify data, it's not impossible, and opens things up to allegations of it, which mean more investigation, probably via a request to Facebook for the same information they could have gotten in the first place and saved all the trouble.

That's one heckuva fishing expedition in the defendants' favor. This just seems like a gigantic overreach of the courts. I mean, if the defense had knowledge that the plaintiffs had written postcards to one another with content relevant to the case, would the judge authorize an agent to go through the entire contents of the plaintiffs' homes and sift through it all on the off chance there was more evidence the defense could use?

Generally, if you "knowingly expose" something to a group of people, you no longer have an expectation of privacy when it comes to that thing. It's not all cut and dried, but something posted on FB to a large number of people would probably not be considered private information, even if your employer wasn't on your friends list.

Yeah but they're including email which ISN'T your Facebook wall. Nor are their passwords something that they share.

I agree with many of the other posters; they subpoena a bank for someone's bank records and the phone company for phone records - why would social media records be any different?

Privacy concerns aside, the defendant's lawyers look like they're trying to play the "she's a slut and, therefore, can't be taken seriously with sexual harassment complaints." Either that or they're trying to embarrass her into dropping charges.

First, this should be done as a dump, not handing over access directly.

Next, unless they have specific knowledge of certain communication, they shoudl only be handed materials ve diacovery process the existing legal team alredy has. Anything else they want, they would need to already know exists, and make specific requests, not general requests, for that information.

Thrid, information relating to the "character" of the women, especially in their personal lives outside of work, is of no relevence in my opinion. They are accused of specific acts, and only evidence disproving those acts shoudl be relevent. If someone WAS a flirt, or promiscuous outside work, that still in NO WAY makes what the employer did forgivible or that it shoudl even result in a reduced punishment. That they COMPLAINED and still nothing was done also places the corporation liable as well as the manager, and again, their sexual orientation or activity outside work, even if known to the manger, is irrelevent in this process.

If part of your lawsuit claims your hugely offended by being called a C, and you posted a picture of yourself wearing a shirt that says C on Facebook, that seems relevant to me.

Her choice of t-shirt, obnoxious as it is, does not negate the illegality of the alleged harassment.

This seems to me the most important thing to remember. Is HBH going for the "she asked for it" defense? With this decision, they seem to have found a sympathetic judge.

Where I'm incluned to bvelieve one of them may have "asked for it" that a) is still unforgivable, he shoudl himself have reported HER activity and saught correction of her behavior or termination, but more importantlly and what people are overlooking, b) did the 19 others ALSO ask for it? highly unlikely. Further c) when complaint was made, NOTHING was done, apparently not even formal documentation of the incedent or review of harrasment policies for either party.

If this is so the defendants will not have access to the accounts, no one aside from one person will know the passwords nor the content of the accounts.

If I'm wrong please tell me so.

It doesn't seem to me that anyone here is objecting to the court having access to the *contents* of the facebook account, but rather to the compulsory disclosure of the password.

There are, I think, a lot of reasons why people draw this distinction, which are mostly emotional, but there are still several valid concerns.

A) A password, shared, is devalued. I know that, from my perspective, any password I'm compelled to share with anyone is no longer secure. If I'm using that password for anything else, I now have to go and change all of those as well.

B) Logging in with the password does not give access to any change log or revision history, leaving anything deleted still hidden, vice going to Facebook itself for the records which would include that information.

C) Giving up the password gives the inspector write access to the account as well. While I think it's unlikely that the inspector would do anything to corrupt/falsify data, it's not impossible, and opens things up to allegations of it, which mean more investigation, probably via a request to Facebook for the same information they could have gotten in the first place and saved all the trouble.

First, let me state I do NOT agree with this order. At best they shoudl get limited access to dumped data, and only specific data they can request. A fishing expidition to locate data that might help their case in contesting the mental and sexual condition of the women is not warranted here; this is not a he-said/she-said, this is a 1 vs 20, and it;s unlikely that any amount of digging will result in showing all 20 "asked for it".

That said:a) your passwords should not be "personal" simply unique. You should also already be changing them frequently, so losing one is not generally considdered a loss, and using a unique password for each service. The only risk is someone knowing you don't use common safe practices, not the specific password. You hand it over to the court, they pull the data with your lawyer present, then you immediately change the password, and if they require access again in the future, you give them the new one and change it again.

b) depends on the site. deleted email that's been archived and purged, it's gone period. Facebook has policies in place for purging certain information from their database within X days after a user deletes it, making it permanatly unavailable after time. Should they hand over information they swore was security erased older than that timeframe, they've be facing class action lawsuits from everyone else. This case has been ongoing long enough that all data deleted when the case began is long since lost forever, so this line of argument is irrelevent. The only thing they can show is someone DOES have a copy (someone printerd it before it was deleted) and then they can show the ACT of deletion as a counterpoint.

c) the access will be monitored by the prosecution legal team, and I'm sure the timeframes for access will also be logged. Further, if posts were made/changed in that time, then the prosecution could subpeoana those audit logs, and prove not just the time they were made, but by what machine/IP confirming they were done by the Master. That would both derail the case against her (making all the evidence the defense is requesting suspect and inadmissible, STRENGTHENING their case against HBH, but it would also give her right to civilly sue the company hired to do the research magnifying her reward. This is not considered a detreimental risk, providing this access, if it is abused, guarantees her a more favorable verdict. The judge still personally reviews anything found, allows the prosecution first chance to object before ther defence even sees what they're objecting to, and personally controlls what does and does not make it into evidence, protecting her through 2 layers from invasive questioning annd use of unrelated information against her. She is not on trial, any attempt to make that so will be tossed out, elsewise guaranteeing an appeal if the judge makes a mistake.

Get plaintiff to change password, let her lawyer have new password, her lawyer, their lawyer and whoever else then get a window to go through the account, change password back. No need to have anyone other than herself or her lawyer have access to a temporary password.

A) I agree, that's how it *should* be. I don't reuse passwords, but it's still a very common thing for people to do so.

B) That's true, if they deleted everything right after they shared it. If, instead, they said "Oh god, they're trying to get my facebook, delete everything!" and did it two days ago, then it's still likely to be in the system. And even if Facebook purged the data, a large bout of deletes logged by all these women around the same time would at least be noteworthy, if only circumstantially incriminating

C) Yes, there are layers of protections against this sort of thing. Which I mentioned. But as I also mentioned, it adds to the complications in the process, and is easily avoidable by going to Facebook for a dump in the first place. It's simply a needless risk, for no appreciable gain.

why wouldn't the corporation's lawyers be required to produce links to the specific 'items' they requested. if they could see the posts before they had the user's passwords, surely they could 'print them out' w/ no additional (and potentially security compromising) information from the plaintiffs. This seems to shout "file a sexual harassment claim against your employer and be prepared to hand over all of your privacy rights" and sets a potentially dangerous precedent.

"We saw you have 'important looking' papers in the bag you take home at night. Well, some of those papers might be work related and therefore we require a key to your home so we can search it along with any/all personal filing cabinets that also contains 'papers'.

Also, a person wearing a shirt that says 'CUNT' outside of the workplace does not give the 'green light' for anyone to call them the word on that shirt while at the workplace, even if the person doesn't take offense to it directly. just sayin..

Why not subpoena Facebook and order them to disclose the relevant info? Requiring the plaintiffs to divulge their passwords to the court doesn't seem like a very good practice.

I don't think this judge even thought of that. too many judges today don't seem to have the level of understand of the tech being used in cases like these to allowed preside over them. A certain level of tech savy should be a requirement today for any judge given so many cases involve the use of tech.

The data Honey Baked Ham is asking for seems to be quite invasive and broadly over aggressive. It also seems to me if the plaintiffs have to provide such information, why shouldn't the defendant have to provide similar information? Honey Baked Ham seems to be using the discovery process to punish the plaintiffs for daring to bring suit against them. Regardless of other factors, Honey Baked Ham seems willing to paint itself as a company willing to continue abuse of people it is accused of sexually harassing as employees. This is the sort of thing I remember when I'm out shopping.

Believe it or not, its not any more invasive than other discovery provided in some civil cases. The main difference is stupid people still think they have some right to privacy when they post something for a bunch of people to see. Someday people will wake up and STOP PUTTING THEIR WHOLE LIFE ON FB... probably not. Privacy is to keep private things private not public things private. The Plaintiffs can change their passwords after the material is removed.

You would not be able to shop most large corporations. They all defend themselves vigorously when they are facing legal action. They all would be considered "abusive" under your rationale. Discovery is great tool to get all the evidence out there. That evidence would include what they say on FB whether you like it or not.

If part of your lawsuit claims your hugely offended by being called a C, and you posted a picture of yourself wearing a shirt that says C on Facebook, that seems relevant to me.

Not at all - the information is entirely context dependent much like the use of the N word in rap vs. in racial abuse. I don't personally think much of either, but I completely understand those who might use a word themselves and not be entirely happy with it being used against them as a power play.

Furthermore, I find it saddening that the defence here seem to be aiming for the classic "she was asking for it" angle. It's trite and it shouldn't work and yet it invariably does.

If part of your lawsuit claims your hugely offended by being called a C, and you posted a picture of yourself wearing a shirt that says C on Facebook, that seems relevant to me.

Either way, isn't asking for the password, or an export of the data, silly? Can't the user just delete the data before providing access? It seems the only way to get all the relevant data would be from Facebook itself.

Only if she wore that shirt to work. Private behavior and public/workplace behavior should not be conflated. Still some of the info is relevant to the case however this very sketchy ground for anyone not involved in the case who thought their "group discussions" were privately restricted to just that group.

If part of your lawsuit claims your hugely offended by being called a C, and you posted a picture of yourself wearing a shirt that says C on Facebook, that seems relevant to me.

So basically, you're saying it would indicate "she was asking for it?"

I think it's relevant too. That's not the same as barring or denying the validity of her harassment claims. If she were a total slut away from work that doesn't excuse harassment at work.

It can still be relevant. If she's claimed to be horribly offended and injured by mere exposure to profanity, a jury would be unlikely to believe her given pictures of her wearing a 'slut' t-shirt. That wouldn't protect HBH if another employee used 'slut' as a pejorative towards her and HBH didn't investigate and punish the behavior.

I agree the information should come from Facebook directly. Appointing a 3rd party to sift through the information and only provide the pertinent parts seems reasonable to me.

CSB: I've been party to a harassment suit where the women filed against a man who rejected her advances. (the charges were false, the company won the suit (over $100k cost) but settled when she appealed to avoid another huge legal bill) I've seen actual harassment that needed to be punished, sometimes it was (including firings). I've several times overheard women talking about framing a man for harassment. I've twice been asked to frame someone. =[ Experiencing all those lies makes me favor gathering as much information as possible to give the court the best chance to make a fair judgement.

Does it follow that as part of the long list of things you sue Fatty McBolognaBreath over should NOT be her calling you a 'dick'? Can you explain how that logic works and how someone calling you a dick and you having worn a shirt with that word on it somehow means you don't mind your boss routinely calling you a dick when you tell her to stop cupping your supple buttocks?

I think you can add it to the list, and it should also be made known to the court that you describe yourself as "dick" by wearing a shirt displaying that in public. It's relevant.

I have to agree with the defence’s actions in wanting to find information to protect them. Especially the data based on how certain individuals see the court case as a way to make big money from suing the company.

On the other hand I have to question the companies thought process on this case considering there are around 20 women on the prosecutions side. How in the world did this manager not loose his job after the first few reported incidents?

I can understand the company not wanting to fork over a ton of money for instances of alleged sexual harassment. And I can also understand that some of what these women are alleging could possibly be over exaggerated (as goes anything that reaches the court system when money is involved).

But again, how in the world did it make it this far. Why was the company so adamant about protecting this one manager and did all 20 women have complaints against him or could this be a simple gang up of former employees who are looking for a quick easy payout?

Either way, I think the company made a HUGE mistake in not taking the allegations seriously (if there were any) when the women worked for the manager and company. And if they are found at fault for not protecting the interests of the women while they worked for said company then they deserve every penny taken from them.

Many issues here, first providing your password such that one may collect personal information as evidence is very much akin to testifying against yourself. "Plead-the-Fifth"

Most of your post is reasonable, except for this. Take everything you know about your rights under the criminal justice system, and throw them all away, because the civil system gives you no such rights. Every right and obligation you have is governed by the Code of Civil Procedure applicable to your jurisdiction, and there has never and will never be any prohibition against being compelled to testify against yourself to the point of admitting a crime, particularly when you are the plaintiff. It's not like a bailiff will immediately arrest you, but you'll probably be counter-sued. Amendments don't apply because there isn't the threat of jail time, except for Equal Protection.

(And if you know anything about Common Law civil courts, throw it all away the minute you step into Louisiana.)

If part of your lawsuit claims your hugely offended by being called a C, and you posted a picture of yourself wearing a shirt that says C on Facebook, that seems relevant to me.

Her choice of t-shirt, obnoxious as it is, does not negate the illegality of the alleged harassment.

It certainly doesn't, but it likely does have some bearing on the damages. Beyond simply a picture of yourself wearing such a picture, if you show a regular pattern of behavior that suggests you are open to lots of people refering to you in such a way, the "emotional damages" that you may have suffered from the illegal actions of your employer a probably a lot less than they would be otherwise.

On top of that there is some relevance in terms of communications and stated beliefs that might have been shared over email or on facebook. The plantiffs might well have communicated among themselves saying things like "Oh we are really going to nail them now! This is the best thing ever! Partying over harassment suit, check out the pics!", etc. Well...again, emotional damages are going to be mitigated to some degree.

There may also be evidence among the communications that the plantiffs are deliberately fabricating evidence or making up claims.

Frankly I think the manager in question is probably guilty as sin. However, that doesn't mean the company doesn't have a right to some of this information (civil discover to defend themselves) and it is at least possible that the whole thing was made up (very unlikely), or that there is a fair amount of mitigation in those communications.

Sexual Harassment is NOT right under any circumstances, however liability wise, is this a group of people traumatized for life and going to need life long counciling? Or are they a group of people who were kind of offended and dancing and parting their way to the bank?

The two different scenarios sound like vastly different damage awards to me (and probably would to most judges/juries as well).

The difficulty I see in granting this kind of access is that it grants access to a lot of private information of the friends of the plaintiffs (who have no connection to this lawsuit - presuming they have friends/family outside of the HBH people) who have not granted this access.

This kind of case really needs to be part of people's education.Anything you post on a social network can be got at by your opponents in a legal dispute, even if they were never part of the allowed audience.I really hope the current generation of teenagers learns this before it's too late.But it is too late already, isn't it.

These kids are all behaving as if posts on facebook and twitter are the same as spoken throwaway comments in their friends' houses or in the pub. (See also the ones (rightly??) being dragged over the coals for their idiotic posts about hating obama for his race)

Why not subpoena Facebook and order them to disclose the relevant info? Requiring the plaintiffs to divulge their passwords to the court doesn't seem like a very good practice.

No and and neither does the C-word on the front of her shirt. She's actually harming herself and not helping her cause at all. What is she thinking? I understand that she wants attention to what's going on with this manager but good grief, that's not exactly the way you should do it imo... This is not exactly the right way to deal with this all!..

Timothy B. Lee / Timothy covers tech policy for Ars, with a particular focus on patent and copyright law, privacy, free speech, and open government. His writing has appeared in Slate, Reason, Wired, and the New York Times.